Although advertisements on the web pages may degrade your experience, our business certainly depends on them and we can only keep providing you high-quality research based articles as long as we can display ads on our pages.

To view this article, you can disable your ad blocker and refresh this page or simply login.

Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD) has seen an increase in sentiment from one key group of investors lately. Let’s take a look at the details.

If you were to ask many investors, hedge funds are seen as delayed, old financial vehicles of an era lost to time. Although there are more than 8,000 hedge funds in operation today, Insider Monkey looks at the leaders of this group, close to 525 funds. Analysts calculate that this group controls most of all hedge funds’ total capital, and by tracking their highest quality picks, we’ve identified a few investment strategies that have historically outpaced the S&P 500. Our small-cap hedge fund strategy outstripped the S&P 500 index by 18 percentage points per annum for a decade in our back tests, and since we’ve started sharing our picks with our subscribers at the end of August 2012, we have outperformed the S&P 500 index by 33 percentage points in 11 months (explore the details and some picks here).

Just as key, optimistic insider trading sentiment is another way to look at the financial markets. As the old adage goes: there are plenty of motivations for an executive to sell shares of his or her company, but just one, very simple reason why they would initiate a purchase. Several empirical studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this method if “monkeys” know what to do (learn more here).

Keeping this in mind, it’s important to study the newest info surrounding Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD).

How have hedgies been trading Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD)?

At the end of the second quarter, a total of 75 of the hedge funds we track were long in this stock, a change of 19% from one quarter earlier. With hedgies’ capital changing hands, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were upping their holdings substantially.

When using filings from the hedgies we track, HBK Investments, managed by David Costen Haley, holds the largest position in Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD). HBK Investments has a $381.4 million position in the stock, comprising 6.4% of its 13F portfolio. On HBK Investments’s heels is Partner Fund Management, managed by Christopher Medlock James, which held a $356.6 million position; 7.4% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Remaining hedge funds that hold long positions include Donald Chiboucis’s Columbus Circle Investors, Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management and Samuel Isaly’s OrbiMed Advisors.

With a general bullishness amongst the titans, certain bigger names have been driving this bullishness. HBK Investments, managed by David Costen Haley, assembled the most outsized position in Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD). HBK Investments had 381.4 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Christopher MedlockáJames’s Partner Fund Management also initiated a $356.6 million position during the quarter. The other funds with brand new GILD positions are Donald Chiboucis’s Columbus Circle Investors, Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management, and Samuel Isaly’s OrbiMed Advisors.

What do corporate executives and insiders think about Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD)?

Insider buying made by high-level executives is best served when the company in question has seen transactions within the past 180 days. Over the latest 180-day time frame, Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD) has seen 1 unique insiders buying, and 6 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

We’ll check out the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD). These stocks are Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:REGN), Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALXN), Biogen Idec Inc. (NASDAQ:BIIB), Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ:CELG), and Amgen, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN). This group of stocks are the members of the biotechnology industry and their market caps match GILD’s market cap.